SWOT, Libs in 06
Category:Organizations A SWOT Analysis shows Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. Libertarian Party of Allegheny County Strategic Analysis Document History This version began by Tim Crowley, recent Chairman of the Allegheny County Libertarian Party, in May, 2004, revised in May, 05, and again in December 05. This strategic analysis should be updated continuously, discussed widely and used as a planning tool. Whether you favor top - down or bottom-up analysis, the LPPa is a relatively small and transparent organization which is not hard to analyze. Posted to this wiki on Dec. 5, 2005. Introduction The LPPa has reached consensus on its objectives when it ratified its Constitution and Bylaws. They could be modified if necessary. The recent Allegheny County Libertarian Party chairman's conclusion was that the Mission Statement was adequate and represents the wishes of the majority of our membership. Should an amendment to the LPPa Purpose or Mission Statement be necessary, we should start now in order to be ready for the deadline, which is 30 days before the next LPPa state convention. (Near the end of January, 2006) STRENGTHS The LPPa Platform is strength because it is logically consistent and derived from the non intervention of force principle. But if it is used as a substitute for a party program, it may become a liability. Also the Platform may be logical, but the majority of voters are not. The Platform has a role, but it should not be overused. The platform has been improved but still needs some work. Its role needs to be more focused. The main points of contention seem to be the abortion and immigration planks. We may need a better shorter term LPPa party program, which would supplement the LPPa Party Platform. The Platform is more of a long term vision statement, while the Party Program describes what can be accomplished realistically over the next few years. The Party Program may eventually be cited more often than the Party Platform. The platform, program, bylaws etc are only one 'leg' of the LPPa table. The other legs arguably are: #. Platform and bylaws (things on paper) #. Fundraising and communications. #. Better training for activists and officers #. Stronger state and county affiliates. We could do a SWOT analysis of each of these legs to the LPPa table, but let's do them all at once for now. We could also show how each LPPa committee can address our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We're part of a viable county, state and national political network. In the past few years, we have managed to coordinate more and more activities by combining local , state and national resources, rather than operating independently. This is analogous to the US military's Army, Navy and Air Force fighting the enemy instead of each other. The bylaws now provide a clear pathway for an unrecognized C county to grow to a B county (with a small organization) , then to an A county (big enough to have a voting LPPa representative.) There is less dissention now than there was several years ago. We had Presidential and Statewide candidates that were universally liked and respected. Candidate support was basically unaffected from dissention. Membership and fundraising are starting to turn the corner. Betsy Summers got 78,000 votes in 2004. We have reached consensus that long-term planning is needed in areas such as candidate recruitment, membership growth, putting LPPa events and deadlines on a time line, ballot access, etc. More people have political experience now. We have over 100 campaign management lessons on file. People are beginning to realize that it takes more than a platform to make a viable political party. We now hold monthly LPPa meetings, which allows us to address issues in a thorough and timely manner. Conference calls are being used to good effect. Event coordination is good. We managed to run a replacement statewide senate candidate with no campaign staff and get her through all the hurdles. 2006 will be a very stiff challenge, however. We need a plan for ballot access in 2006. Coordination between LPPa and counties is improving. Coordination between LPPa and National is improving. Fundraising has taken a quantum leap forward with the 1788 Society, but it won't be enough to raise enough money to get on the ballot in 2006. We are leading an effort by 'third parties' to reduce the ballot access requirements in Pa. before the 2006 election season. Hopefully this effort will bear fruit in 2006. This effort should be one of our top priorities in 2006. We have several means of communications available to us, including email networks, county meetings and press releases. We should make more use of the telephone, however. This is our neglected means of communication. The Rauterkus campaign was the first campaign to use the auto dialer. It should be used somewhere in the state at all times. The LPPa is starting its own blog. Our management team is getting better every year. We have improved our board and committees one person at a time since 2003. Membership numbers are trending up again due to timely mailing of renewals. We have been mailing the Lib Penn to hundreds if not thousands of registered Libertarians who are not dues paying party members. Hopefully some of them will join the LPPa and become active at either the county or state levels. We are just a dozen skilled people away from doubling our impact. We have made an effort to educate our general membership and volunteers via campaign management lessons placed on various email groups and bulletin boards . This effort will ultimately lead to an overall improvement in campaign and marketing knowledge for members at all levels of the state party. Like a rising tide lifting all boats, a rising appreciation of campaign management techniques will eventually increase the effectiveness of the LPPa at the individual, county and statewide levels. We have stood for individual freedom for more than 30 years. We are on the voter registration forms for now. Citizens can register Libertarian at the Dept of Motor Vehicles via the Motor Voter laws. We have achieved Minor Party Status with 79,000 votes statewide in 2004, eclipsing the 42,000 in 2002. We have capitalized on this by running Mark Rauterkus for state senate in a special election, where minor parties can run candidates without doing any petitioning. Mark got 7.5% of the vote in part of Allegheny County. his allowed the local party to operate in 'election mode' through May, 2005. We have an ongoing Toastmasters program in many areas. Libertarians are mentioned more often in the media than ever before, although there is room for improvement. We send out press releases and occasionally get quoted in the newspaper. We have a solid presence on the internet. Weaknesses: We will have much difficulty getting our statewide candidates on the ballot in 2006. A minimum of 66,000 signatures will be needed. The 1788 Society, though useful, would need 800 participants to raise $100,000 by mid 2006. We cannot reliably fill every board position. We have an over reliance on a dozen people. We need redundancy. Board members need assistants. We need leaders for specific projects, as well as positions designed for mentoring. We need a 'recruitment committee' which recruits whatever people the LPPa needs. This includes board members, committee chairs, county chairs, county contacts, candidates, campaign managers, LTE writers, and so on. Each committee will, or course, still try to recruit the best people. But we need to coordinate all of our ad-hoc efforts at recruitment and mentoring into one committee, which would be held responsible for finding a replacement if a board member decides to resign in a few months, for example. many people on the committee. This committee could function as the LPPa’s Human Relations Dept. We have no exploratory committees set up by potential 2006 candidates for statewide, congressional or state house/senate races. We are missing an opportunity to get campaign committees up and running early with clear channels of communication and authority. Since we do not have the resources to execute a ‘media blitz’ or a massive canvassing operation involving hundreds of volunteers and thousands of dollars, LPPa candidates need to do a little campaigning every day, over a longer period of time. We are the tortoise competing with the hare, so we’d better learn to play the role of tortoise as well as possible. The 2006 LPPa Convention will be held in early March, 2006 in State College. The details of the convention are still being hammered out. We may wish to revisit the decision that the LPPa never holds the convention itself. A few years ago, the LPPa lost several thousand dollars on the convention. But now, with better fundraising via the 1788 Society, better management, and more contacts in the hospitality industry, we may be able to put on our own conventions and keep the profits. Once membership and fundraising numbers go up, the risks involved in holding the LPPa convention might be more manageable. Also it may be unfair to have some ‘entity’ run our convention and take all of the risks. We should revisit this issue once our balance sheet is more stable and we can handle the increased risk. But we have decided to emphasize the counties more at odd numbered year conventions. It may not ever be possible to get large numbers of students at our conventions, however because they are busy with finals in march-may. In the summer they are dispersed and not working together as a group. We haven't decided how to handle 2006 ballot access yet. A two track policy of preparing for a Local Strategy while trying to get the Voters' Choice Act passed seems prudent. Getting our local candiaates organized ahead of time will be a good idea whether the VCA passes or not. At the individual level, members must become better versed in the mechanics of campaigns. At the county level, management needs to be improved and time lines need to be maintained in order to prioritize and to shorten the decision cycle when deciding to undergo a project. The platform has been improved but still needs some work. Its role needs to be more focused. The main points of contention seem to be the abortion and immigration planks. The platform is probably the most developed leg to the LPPa table, though. We have greater weaknesses in other areas. The platform should be supplemented with a shorter term tactical party program. At the state level, we have too many vacancies on the board and we are constantly in a reactive mode, rather than a proactive mode. At the national level, they are still in the hole, although they have largely stopped digging. National will go to a zero dues policy in 2006. This leaves more fundraising opportunities for state and county parties everywhere In any case, we need to proactively deal with the dues changes and the 2006 ballot access hurdles. . Many county chapters are still in disarray. There are still too few incentives for county chapters to form and grow. We need an accurate list of the A, B and C counties in Pa. Additionally, we need to break down the B counties according to the number of signatures on their county documentation kit. Since it takes 12 signatures to get a vote on the board, we need to know if a county is a B7, B11 or B2 so that they can join together to get at least 12. Also some of the signatures on the documentation kits may have lapsed memberships. We need to clean this situation up. So far, the LPPa has gained many county affiliates. We have gone from about 5 of them to about 15. This is a great trend which should be encouraged in every way possible. There is no field organizing from National or from the state party. We may have to do this ourselves via Toastmasters and via workshops and other means. The LPPa archives could help but many people (like me) forget how to access them. We could improve George Phillies' candidate support disk and use that as a field organizing tool. We could recruit some county support specialists for each region of the state. Factionalism is leading many qualified Libertarians to sit on the sidelines. Perhaps they will become active in the LPPa again, or at least fight for libertarian ideas at the local level or in Libertarian leaning organizations. We have a bias toward computer -based solutions to all problems. The old adage, "If all you have is a hammer, the world becomes a nail" comes to mind. Posting flyers on bulletin boards would probably reach more people, yet few people post them. We send emails when calling on the phone would cement a relationship for good. Without becoming Luddites, we should use computers as one of many components in the mix. Our candidates tend to throw everything but the kitchen sink onto their public speeches, selling features instead of benefits. This makes it hard for the uninitiated to figure it all out. We should treat inquiries as well as a waiter treats you at a family restaurant. We need to form outreach committees at the local level who make sure that newcomers are made to feel welcome at meetings and events. Otherwise, people will drop the ball on this and we won’t grow as fast. We need to regard our platform and bylaws as one leg of the table. Similarly, we need to regard computers and web sites as one leg of the communications table among many. We tend to over rely on platforms and web sites and not enough on logistics, flyer distribution, salesmanship and so on. Logistics is the ability to get large numbers of people to go to the same place, at the same time, to deliver the same message. Whether they show up on the Capitol steps in Harrisburg on a Tuesday afternoon, or whether they go to their computers to write an email to selected state representatives, it is all part of logistics. We have improved greatly in this area, but at times we let this lapse. Should we drop the associate membership option? We have about 30 associate members. We should figure out what the purpose of associate LPPa memberships are? Is it to put people on a mailing list? To give them a ‘free sample’ of the LPPa so that we can get them to join as a dues paying member? We need to define the role of associate memberships in the overall membership and fundraising mix. Maybe they should be phased out, maybe we should have 100 Associate members. It depends on what we are trying to accomplish. We are increasing membership, but it is still half of its peak level. We have put fundraising on a more stable platform with the 1788 Society, but it is inadequate to get the LPPa on the state ballot in 2006. It would take over 800 1788 society memberships to raise $100,000 for ballot access in 2006. Since we have about 40 1788 society members right now, it seem unlikely that we can raise $100,000 for any purpose in 2006. Not enough LPPa members have the skill sets needed for success (persuasion techniques, basic knowledge of campaigns, parliamentary procedure, public speaking, etc). Campaign management seminars have been placed on a few bulletin boards, but the membership as a whole has not read them regularly. Perhaps we should include excerpts from campaign management and marketing seminars in the LibPenn if space permits? The National LP is in debt, and has cut back on services to the states and counties. We need to strengthen the individual activist, the local chapter, and the state party, while still keeping an eye on the national party to curb its excesses. We need a better way to deal with inquiries and convert them into voters or members on an ongoing basis. Roadblocks upon the path from inquiry to member to activist to officer or candidate must be removed. Membership, activism, mentoring and fundraising go hand in hand. Jim Pisano now has vista print LPPa business cards to include in every mailing. The email voting system makes it impossible to amend any motion without it taking a month. It imposes undue responsibilities upon the Secretary. It is basically unworkable unless there is a simple up/down vote. Since we now have monthly meetings, my recommendation is to leave 'well enough' alone and to rarely use this feature. We need a 'permanent unofficial campaign staff' to help candidates with various logistical hurdles such as planning events, getting on the ballot and filling out reports. We need to be in 'campaign mode' in the odd numbered years too. We now have an inventory of Libertarian resources by county. But we need to continually update it. We need to know how big a B county actually is. How many members? How many signers to their documentation kit? How much is in their treasury? How many candidates have they run in the past few years? What type of events do they hold? Do they wish to apply for full "A County" representation Do they send out press releases? Do they get involved in local affairs? Do they wish to help the state party? What pieces to the puzzle do they have? Which pieces are they missing? How can the LPPa help? The Secretary has too many time consuming tasks to perform. There should be a review of all procedures with the goal of paperwork reduction for all board members and volunteers. This will lead to less burnout, more efficiency and more time spent on outreach. Our legal reporting requirements should be reviewed by the legal and research committees, however. We should revisit the issue of whether to get liability insurance. Many committee chairs have their duties defined in terms of keeping records, rather than going out into the real world and engaging non-libertarians. Mentoring has improved but is often the exception rather than the rule. Current best practices are not spread to the county and individual level as well as they could be. Some people feel threatened by new members with new ideas. Their own importance may be diminished. There is no set procedure for getting new people in to the LPPa pipeline, nor for mentoring and development of teams and county parties. We need a program of internal development at all levels to get inquiries into the LPPa activist pipeline. Opportunities: The 1788 Society gives us more reliable funding sources. Although we may not get our statewide candidates on the ballot in 2006, we can start a nest egg for 2008. We can also spend some money on local chapters and local campaigns. We also have a strong reason to emphasize running lots of local candidates in 2006, further developing the capabilities of the county affiliates. We should be forming exploratory committees for state rep candidates before the state convention. If we don’t we will be missing a major opportunity. Smaller B counties can now join together to form Regional Committees with a vote on the LPPa board, but they need a clearer roadmap. So far, no groups of B counties have joined together to get a vote on the LPPa board. We should use the upcoming convention as a place to get LPPa members to sign county chapter documentation kits. We also have to summarize which counties are A B and C. We also need the number of signatures on the B county documentation kits. One county might be a B2, while another is a B7 or a B11. They must add up to 12 or more for a vote on the board. Also some of the signatures on the documentation kits may have lapsed memberships. We need to clean this situation up. The odd numbered years are an opportunity to grow at the local level. Mayors, city council, IoEs, JoEs are elected in 2005. We need a list of Pa. cities that are electing mayors in 2005. This way, we can keep a high profile for another year. The 2005 and 2006 candidate recruitment process should start on Nov 3rd, 2004. We need to find a way to develop synergy between the IoEs and JoEs and the other officeholders and candidates. Since National will go to a zero dues policy in 2006, the LPPa should increase its fundraising efforts to registered Libertarians in Pa. The Lib Penn is a useful and relatively inexpensive vehicle for doing this. Even if we don’t get on the ballot statewide in 2006, we can still run a very successful “local candidate’ strategy. We can emphasize state rep candidates, get some clean Sweep candidates to run as libertarians, give the Keystone quiz to every non libertarian candidate and so one. We can brainstorm effective answers to candidate surveys from special interest groups. We need to collate info on which special interest groups give out candidate surveys, brainstorm good answers to these, and make sure that our candidates fill these out in a timely manner. Exploratory committees set up by prospective candidates the year before the nomination would give candidates a chance to get fully organized, to raise funds, and to hit the ground running before the formal nomination at the state convention. We need to look for 2006-07 candidates early. The 2006 general election will be held on Tuesday, November 7 and the primary election will likely be held in late May. The offices that will be up for election are listed below. * U.S. Senator * U.S. Representative * Pennsylvania Governor * Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor * PA State Representative and 1/2 of Pa Senate. 2007 * City Council, * Mayor of Philly * Allegheny County Executive * Allegheny county controller * Pgh controller The associate member option is not helping us in any way. Why not give all the associate members a free one year LPPa full membership and phase it out altogether? We could also give associate memberships a better defined role and recruit hundreds of them. If the LPPa could simply put its activities and deadlines on an "event horizon" similar to the one used in Allegheny County for the past 4 years, it will lessen a lot of time-management problems. The 2006 LPPa convention could include more workshops to bring individual members up to speed on ways to petition, to handle local events and press conferences, on the needs of the state and local parties for the year ahead, and so on. Workshops and breakout sessions may do us more good than guys dressed up in Pilgrim costumes. We need to make individuals, counties, political action teams, campaign staffs, and the LPPa board itself stronger and more knowledgeable. We put Robert's Rules into the convention booklet. we should make the yearly convention booklet a useful book to have around, not a memento that you stick in a sock drawer and throw out a few years later. We could add a list or map of A and B counties. The convention booklet should become a year round reference tool for the county chapters. In many cases, we have resources that just aren't being fully used. I always forget how to access the LPPa archives. I'm sure others have forgotten too. County chapters get $5 for every LPPa member is their county, but how many counties have ever started an LPPa membership drive based on this incentive? Should B counties receive this incentive permanently? This $5 per LPPa member in your county will double to $10 in 2006. Perhaps counties will start their own recruitment drives to get the additional $10? We need an LPPa time line that is collated by one knowledgeable person who then emails it to Pa Libernet and to LPPa discussion. There are lots of books on campaign management, on salesmanship and other topics, but they haven't been read by enough of our members. We have campaign speeches on tape, but have they been watched by future candidates? The current board is interested in changing bylaws and procedures to enhance the LPPa. Eminent Domain may be a big issue in 2006. We need to work with PA Clean Sweep on issues of mutual interest through 2006 and beyond. We could give Clean Sweep candidates the Keystone Quiz. We could also encourage qualified Clean Sweep candidates to register Libertarian, come to our convention and ask for our nomination. We have outperformed the Greens in the last statewide election, neutralizing their advantage via the 2000 Nader campaign in Pa. We can expand upon this, even while working with them on projects such as joint debates and ballot access. We have an excellent opportunity for spearheading an effort by ALL Pa. minor parties to reduce ballot access requirements. Recent growth in the county chapters near Harrisburg gives us the opportunity to become a larger factor in state politics. The LibPenn is underutilized and understaffed. We can use the LibPenn as a fundraising and educational tool, as well as a motivational and recruitment tool. We can achieve economies of scale by sending out 1,000 LibPenns at a time instead of a few hundred. We can save money via the e-version. Campaign tips could be added to the LibPenn. We should take the lead against the national ID card. The same people who oppose the Patriot Act will also oppose the national ID card. We can transcribe tapes of our candidates' debate and interview performances. Then future candidates can improve on their answers. We will then improve our overall media performance without reinventing the wheel. Campaign literacy among our members will lift the entire LPPa the same way that a high literacy rate lifts the national economy. We need to use the LPPa archives as a how-to manual which enables individuals, counties and candidates to get good advice in one place, without reinventing the wheel. Perhaps we need one person to be in charge of organizing and updating materials in the LPPa archives, and to make sure qualified people know how to access them? We also need to organize candidates' answers to surveys from special interest groups. The LPPa can do a lot to save its candidates and volunteers time reinventing the wheel. The LPPa could send out its own surveys to non-libertarian candidates. We need to remind our supporters in the gay, 2nd amendment, anti-tax, motorcycle helmet and drug legalization communities that we are consistently on their side. Since we now have strong county chapters surrounding Harrisburg, we could continually monitor which special interest groups are holding rallies on the capitol steps. We could get some Capitol Area libertarians to attend these rallies, network with the organizers and volunteers, and to walk around with large signs that say “Libertarians Support Clean Sweep/ eminent domain, / tax reform, “etc. Targeted mailings and e-mailings to special interest groups could boost our support over time. We could have a special "Second Amendment" edition of the LibPenn and mail it to selected gun clubs, for example. The Libertarian Movement needs to make inroads into PALM (politics, academia, law and the media). We could adopt the Small Business Initiative, as Indiana did. Other smaller parties have nearly disbanded. We should try to win over some of their members and activists to the LPPa. We could spearhead an effort by all minor parties in Pa. to reduce the onerous ballot access requirements in Pa. IMO 10,000 signatures should be enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. Every local LP chapter should attempt to organize a libertarian club at a nearby campus. If we had more 'A' counties or groups of counties with a voting rep on the LPPa board, then we would have a bigger pool of people to choose committee chairs from. We can refine the various 'event horizons' and use them as day to day planning tools. The LPPa needs its own 'event horizon" which would help us to plan activities on a systematic, event-driven basis. We can fix the databases, clean up the web sites, etc during the winter months, while recruiting at outdoor festivals, etc during the summer months. We must match our activities to those of the seasons and the larger political world. We could also set up 'cookie cutter' generic sites for state rep candidates etc early. The candidates, once chosen, can just add content. The machinery that allows us to get on the raise money, get on the ballot and run candidates must be maintained. We have to make fundraising a fundamental part of our ongoing activities. The LPPa should give individual LPPa grassroots members incentives to sign up additional members. Besides the A or B county getting $10 per LPPa member in 2006, perhaps we need to go further. Anyone who 'sponsors' a new LPPa member (someone who has never been part of the LPPa before) during a certain time period gets $10 off on their own membership renewal. This gives every member an incentive to sign up his or her mother, brother, sister, wife, boyfriend, tennis partner, etc. This will increase revenues over the long term because each new member is a new revenue stream. If someone sponsors one person a year, then their $25 LPPa membership is only $15. Additionally, the two new members bring in $50 more to the LPPa. So, for a cost of $20, the LPPa gets an additional $50. Fundraising is a river, not a stagnant pond. We can’t continue to ask the same 50 people for money all the time. I have $50 in my wallet every day, but it is a different $50 each time. We have to increase membership and turn members in to donors and into volunteers. We should also promote the idea that local members can solicit orders for campaign signs or million dollar bills, etc in bulk. We get several counties to agree to purchase some, then lump their orders into a bigger order. This allows us to take advantage of lower per unit cost for buying a large quantity of printed material. Perhaps we could combine our order with those of nearby states and distribute the materials at meetings and state conventions? the net result would be a lot more flyers and signs available to the grassroots as a low price. Board positions have no staff. Staff could be used to mentor the next generation of LPPa leaders. We could make more use of task forces. We need 'minutemen' who will pitch in and help the board with tasks such as updating databases, calling people, etc.. Let's identify and train the top 100 L/libertarians in Pa. Staffing and supporting our state and county boards and committees is part of the logistics function that I talked about earlier. Opposing Patriot Acts I and II will give us a way to reach non-conservatives. We could rework our Patriot I press releases and send them out again vs. Patriot II. Send them to the groups who oppose Patriot I. We could make better use of blogs and podcasts in 2006. Threats: Ballot access will require over 66,000 signatures in 2006. Fundraising is not adequate to raise $100,000 by then. Nor can it support a paid state director. Let's be honest. At times, we are our own worst enemies. The Greens are still out there. Many environmental groups have non-Green donors but they have Green-type platforms and are run by Greens. The LPPa has nothing similar to this. We need 'plain vanilla' groups with ties to the LPPa that anyone can join. The Constitution Party is still strong in Pa. They can get 5% of the vote if the D and R are both Pro choice. This throws off our electoral calculations. But the Constitution party is not as strong nationwide as the LP is. We just have a very strong Pa. Constitution party chapter in our backyard to contend with. We need to consider purchasing liability insurance for the LPPa and its Board. We need to make sure that the LPPa and its county affiliates are in compliance with BCRA and with all reporting requirements. We have constituencies who are politically incompatible with each other. We can lose their support if we try to lump them all together, without thinking about what THEY want. The Ds and Rs still have a near monopoly on the minds of the average voter. Complacency and inertia is a threat to us. The Libertarian Movement needs to make inroads into PALM (politics, academia, law and the media). They are all general threats to the LPPa. The National Party needs to stay on a fiscally responsible course. We have no organized way to monitor the progress of the LNC and to report the results as a scorecard. We are basically spectators to a situation which involves us directly. Can Region 5 develop some sort of LNC scorecard which evaluates how LNC members are voting and gives them an A-F grade? Ballot access laws are too strict. It was difficult to get the LP Pres. candidate on the Pa. ballot in 2004. But we did collect 21,000 volunteer signatures out of 40,000. We should strive to continually raise our volunteer signature contribution by getting more members to collect at least 100 signatures. We need to work with other minor Pa. parties to decrease the ballot access requirements and to fight for inclusion into televised debates. appendix We need to look for 2006 candidates early. Links * Recommended Books * Expiring Terms, a year-by-year schedule